Thursday, February 02, 2012

Liberals Close Fundraising Gap

With the year end fundraising figures out for all the parties, encouraging signs for the Liberal Party in particular. The Conservatives still FAR outpace everyone, but the gap is narrowing and the Liberals are showing peculiar resilience, given recent electoral manifestations. As an aside, those scoffing at any fundraising "uptick" would be the same people jumping all over any "setback" as evidence of looming death, a revealing reality. There is something to be said for a third party easily besting the Official Opposition, as well as increasing donors, given perceptions.

It wasn't that long ago that the Conservatives regularly had 4X the fundraising of the Liberals, ditto for the amount of donors. This latest quarter shows the closest comparison to date, Liberals actually raised 66% of the Conservative tally, 71% on the donor front:

The above figures represents the narrowest fundraising gap we've seen in many years, while the Conservatives are still well out front, the Liberals are beginning to operate in the same area code. If we go back to the same quarter last year, we see the Conservatives have dropped 6000 donors and 1.1 million raised. The Liberals are up almost 6000 donors and more than 500000 thousand. NDP fundraising is flat year to year, number of donors up slightly.

With political fundraising subsidies being phased out, obviously the Liberals have a steep climb ahead. However, it is important to remember the Conservatives received the most money from this system, further amplifying the disparity. Under the above numbers as sole source of party income, this disparity is actually lessened, relative to the past.

The Liberals are starting to build a consistent fundraising base, the Victory Fund is creating a steady donor stream. Liberals have more than doubled their fundraising from last quarter, they've added 8000 donors, and they've once again easily outpaced the Official Opposition once again. Add in the narrowing gap with the Conservatives, and it's a relatively optimistic scenario, the trends are encouraging.

There is a sense that Liberals have the slightest of breeze in their sails, the fundraising numbers do nothing to detract from that sentiment, in fact I'm putting the figures in the "Not Too Shabby Zombies" folder. Long way to go, but we've come some distance as well.

5 comments:

Despite the howling from the opposition, eliminating the federal funding of parties is a good thing. It will slope the playing field in ways proportional to a party's actual public support (which is how it should be).

The intangibles are important too. The pride from doing it on your own will translate into success in other aspects of your operations. Nothing breeds sloth like handouts.

It's a principle that can be applied to much of our "social safety net" that only compounds problems.

I fundamentally disagree. This just perpetuates the 30,000 foot aerial bombardment & further disengages citizens. If elections & party finances were measured in the 100's of thousands rather than millions, one on one would be the nature of election & not the circus we see in the US of A.

I'm wondering if the NdP numbers reflect their leadership campaign -- does it include what the candidates are raising themselves, and if not, what is the gap with all of it tallied?The report is very encouraging; I have sensed a more cohesive framing and substance to the fundraising, but still note that we lag behind the CONs when it comes to being adroit for multiple issue targeting.At this moment, we should be blitzing seniors with 'What Harper Won't Tell You', and at the same time newer Canadians 'The truth about Harper's Immigration Agenda'... Highlighting the priorities of us and them. Who needs Rocco?